2008-12-29

Would you believe that at noon today, the Anthony Henday only got 27 seconds of green light at the Lessard Road intersection.

That is completely unacceptable. That the Freeway that is supposed to be Highway 216 has lights is already atrocious, but that you have less than 30 seconds to clear it before it turns red again is just inexcusable.

Drive down 104th avenue at 109th street, and I'll bet you those lights are more than 30 seconds in duration. I know the dumb way they built the southwest Henday (ie. no P3s) guarantees we'll have lights there until 2018 or some ridiculous date, but surely they can make Lessard traffic wait at that light for at least a minute or two!

You might think this list somewhat... odd. The first thing you might observe is that I'm certainly not going to win a lot of supporters if I was the one making this move. There would be a lot of anger, violent mobs, big protests, etc. etc. etc.

And thus the beauty of it. As perturbed crowds raised more and more hell over the move, Prime Minister Harper has a quick and easy comeback.If you had wanted a different Senator to represent you, you should have voted for them.

2008-12-18

You all remember the tales of Chang, Martok, and Kang, my three friends acquaintences in the hockey pool my buddy runs. Well, Martok is an actual friend, the other two by relation. Anyways, there's another infamous baseball/hockey pooler in the group (we shall dub Kruge) who is most famous for being a thirty year old queer pedophile virgin. At least one of these attributes is accurate, we may have made the other ones up. I forget which one it is. Anyways, this video is for him (not the least of which because the green-hat-wearing guy in the backseat is an awfully accurate resemblance:

Easy mother-#$*^&*@ing E:

That song by Kings of Leon that gets mega-overplayed on Sonic:

Peter Frampton asking if we feel like he does in 1976. Jeff Burges (sp?) on K97's "Legends of Classic Rock" segment mention his use of that weird talkbox gizmo:

The classic "Doctor McCoy" by sci-fi themed 90s pop band S.P.O.C.K.:S.P.O.C.K. - Dr McCoy
Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" as done by anthromorphic raisins. We think some people in the 1980s were high on drugs, odd as it may seem:
Depeche Mode did a cover of the classic Nat King Cole song that was a major blues/swing song for many years. About the same time, Route 66 itself was removed from the roster of highways. This can't be a coincidence:
What's more disturbing than German techno? German techno and naked puppets:

2008-12-15

It doesn't happen all that much, but I have a beef with something from Mark Steyn's award-winning America Alone:

I haven't really followed Sudanese current events closely since, oh, Gen. Kitchener's victory over the Mahdi at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. But a recent story from that benighted land happened to catch my eye. Last month mass hysteria apparently swept the capital city, Khartoum, after reports that foreigners were shaking hands with Sudanese men and causing their penises to disappear. One victim, a fabric merchant, told his story to the London Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi. A man from West Africa came into the shop and "shook the store owner's hand powerfully until the owner felt his penis melt into his body."

I know the feeling. The same thing happened to me after shaking hands with Sen. Clinton. Anyway, as Al-Quds reported, "The store owner became hysterical, and was taken to the hospital." The country's "Chief Criminal Attorney General" Yasser Ahmad Muhammad told the Sudanese daily Al-Rai Al-A'am that "the rumor broke out when one merchant went to another merchant to buy some Karkady [a Sudanese beverage]. Suddenly, the seller felt his penis shriveling."

The invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute, in its exhaustive coverage, noted that the penises of Khartoum were vulnerable not merely to handshaking. "Another victim, who refused to give his name, said that while he was at the market, a man approached him, gave him a comb, and asked him to comb his hair. When he did so, within seconds, he said, he felt a strange sensation and discovered that he had lost his penis."

Tales of the vanishing penises ran rampant round the city, spread by cell phones and text messages. Sudan's Attorney General Salah Abu Zayed declared that all complaints about the missing penises would be brought before a special investigative committee, though doctors had determined that the first plaintiff was "perfectly healthy." The health minister, Ahmad Bilal Othman, said that the epidemic was "scientifically groundless," and that it was "sorcery, magic, or an emotional problem."

...

But here's the telling detail: the vanishing-penis hysteria was spread by cell phones and text messaging. Think about that: you can own a cell phone, yet still believe that foreigners are able with a mere handshake to cause your penis to melt away. That's a state-of-the-art primitive.

Now one has to admit that this is a pretty damning assault on the people who follow the Islamic faith: it ties nicely in with Steyn's thesis about their cherry picking of western advances: Boeing 747 passenger jets they accept, suitcase nukes they accept, the AK-47 they accept, but individual liberty and women drivers they cannot abide. While I am of course a fan of individual liberty, I don't know if the free will of man can be extended to the questionable will of the woman.

You see, today I was reading America Alone while I waited for the evening coffee to brew, and something about this struck me. I've seen this before. I don't mean the vanishing penis thing, I mean the irrational beliefs of people who own cell phones and computers and can live in the modern world yet be so ignorant of it. I mean, look at this:

The contents of this e-mail are confidential to the ordinary user of the e-mail address to which it was addressed and may also beprivileged. If you are not the addressee of this e-mail you may not copy, forward, disclose or otherwise use it or any part of it in anyform whatsoever. If you have received this e-mail in error please e-mail the sender by replying to this message.

Doesn't this seem just as irrational and stupid as the penis-melters? The women I know send me at least 5 emails like this a month. (Note: about twenty-five additional header blocks were deleted by me: the bandwidth waste here must have been horrendous). And as for cell phones, four different women sent me 15 forwards in the past month, and here's a sample one:

Read this message do not delete it or ignore it. One day a girl was dreaming about the perfect guy and she received this mesage. She read it a few times and sent it to all her friends. The next day at the mall she saw her dream guy. He walked up to her and they became best friends and eventually went out and were married years later. A boy was texting his girlfriend when he received this message. He read it and laughed and deleted it, thinking his life couldn't get any better. Then two days later wen he was supposed to go out wit his girl she never showed up and as he was driving he heard on the radio his girlfriend had been in a car accident and died. He also lost his mother and best friend. He decided to find the message and he sent it. he found out his girlfriend and best friend were not dead. Just in a coma. His mom did not survive. If you care about the people around you, YOU Will send this to ten people before midnight and sumthing will make you very happ!y.

Women are stupid enough to actually believe this garbage. I can't tell you how many of these text messages and emails and Yahoo/MSN instant messages I've replied to by explaining they are total fakes: how can you believe that if you sent an IM forward to everybody on your contact list your contact list will glow with special colours to tell you who has a crush on you. In almost every case, the increasingly-defensive woman claims that "well, I thought it was worth a try".

2008-12-07

Generally I wouldn't say that, but with Taiwan's second player in the majors, I would have to disagree. The routine doesn't work with one: Scully's getting up there, but I doubt he could confuse himself.

This is Nyjer Morgan. He still has the puck he scored his first WHL goal with, one of two goals he scored in 1999-2000 with the Regina Pats. He played only 7 games, but managed 20 penalty minutes. He played with current NHLer Derek Boogaard (who had 17 PIMs in 5 games).

Anyways, according to an old Dodgers broadcast I was re-watching this morning, Morgan started playing hockey because it was his passion. Morgan's a black kid from San Fransisco: the only thing less likely than a black man from California being passionate about hockey is a black man from California voting against Proposition 8. (insert rim shot here. pun intended).

"Most definitely my best asset is my speed. I was blessed with natural speed. I never ran track before, none of that stuff, I've just got it in my genes, I guess," said Morgan, whose first name is pronounced as NIGH-jer. "It was my biggest asset in hockey, too."

After hockey, Nyjer went to Walla Walla College, and in 2002 was drafted in the 33rd round (!!) by the Pirates, where he has been since (in the system that is: he spent most of 2008 in the AAA Indians farm club).

Well, the big rally was yesterday. I didn't go, and the fact that right-wingers aren't really the rallying type will keep the turnout "artificially" low as it was.

My mother was planning to attend the rally, but decided that the icy roads and downtown parking difficulties made it not worth going. My friend from northeast Alberta was going to come, but her computer was having difficulty so she had her boyfriend come fix it before he went back to Fort Mac. A coworker who lives mere blocks from Linda Duncan's downtown office decided going to the new Leg grounds location was too far of a walk. Another friend decided to help his young son practice playing hockey rather than rally, etc. etc.

Meanwhile every remotely pro-coalition person I know skipped their union job to go (or didn't have anything to do as UofA classes ended the previous day). When all is said and done, angry marches on the steps of the building who's top dog vigorously opposes the coalition as well were secondary to family, personal well being, and time with friends. Besides, Parliament got prorogued by "Harper the Pro Roguer", so those who don't want to spend Christmas saying a prayer for "the well being of Prime Minister Dion" got their wish.

Ironically, the preceding comment by Kathy Shaidle was how these rallies were just dry outdoor pickup bars -- hence their appeal to University leftists. The irony is that that the reason I didn't attend the rally (either: I was considering crashing the pro rally last night) was because I was spending the day with a pretty girl.

2008-12-02

In the span of 72 hours, Canada has suddenly found itself no longer in the grip of an economic crisis (the Bank of Canada having refused to play the game Jack Layton had intended them to play when the 3rd quarter report showed our economy doing that... what's it called? oh, growing), so instead the Liberals and NDP were quick to create a constitutional crisis†.

Understand that by the time BlogRolling and Technoratti add this post to their feeds, this might all be old news, but here's my thoughts on the on-going issue as is.

First, as everybody and their dog now knows, this is because of Harper's threat to cut the $1.95 funding to all political parties: his party would lose more cash, but everybody else would lose all their budgets. Of particular risk is the BQ, who is forced to fundraise in Quebec where there is no longer anybody left with money: all chased away by the very political battles that the BQ was created to fight, ironically enough.

Secondly, as a friend indicated today, Harper should have known what happens when you put a desperate hungry animal into a "fight or flight" position: they do something desperate and hungry. Make no mistake about it, this is a really really really dumb thing for them to do.

Am I sure about that? Yes, let's do a quick check of the fundamentals:

This is a minority government, the third consecutive in tightly fought elections.

In politics there is a simple rule about any action your government or opposition wishes to take: either your plan has to bring in more new voters than the number of old voters you lose, or else you had such a glut of old voters you could afford to lose them.

The Liberals particularly are not in this second camp. The coalition as a whole is even moreso not able to chose the latter option. Votes are tight, because this is a minority government.

We must accept that there is some percentage of Liberal voters, lets denote it x, who will not be happy with the current course of action and will not be voting Liberal in the next election. x might be 0%, which I doubt. It might be 10%, or even 15-20%, we can argue about its size all we like, but that number exists.

Now bear in mind there is also some percentage, which we shall call y, of voters who voted NDP on October 14th and will no longer vote for the NDP in the next election because of this stunt. I suspect its larger than x but no guarantee of this fact will be necessary for the calculation to follow.

Let us suppose, with good reason, that the people who will not vote for the Liberals because of this will not vote for the NDP as they have made themselves peas in a pod. We can assume the reverse is true for the NDP voters. They are highly unlikely to oppose this action by "their" party and then approve it in the next. Remember that just six weeks ago, a potential Liberal voter chose the NDP because he didn't want the Liberals in power (or opposition). A potential NDP voter chose the Liberals because there was something about Layton or his party that he didn't like.

Now with this in mind, the coalition as a whole (I am ignoring the Bloc and making this English-provinces only calculation for semi-obvious reasons) stands to lose x + y votes in the next election. Again, we don't know how many voters this number represents, but it does represent a proportion. The end question has to be, as mentioned above, how many new votes for the coalition do Dion and Layton expect to get? For the electoral calculus on this move to make sense, they have to get a number greater than x+y to decide to switch to either of their parties. The problem is that this just isn't going to happen! Conservative supporters (even tenuous ones) aren't going to support one of the two parties they just finished voting against! They might siphon a few Green voters (more on this later), but I thought the whole deal with the Greens is that their voters weren't voting for political expediency and therefore won't be strategically switching votes. Did the LibDips expect that they were going to get a lot of undecided voters? Even the earliest reaction to their plan indicated that such a scenario wasn't about to happen. Maybe a few months into the mandate it might have worked, but not now before Harper has really even done anything.

In the end what we are looking at is a situation where the LibDips are guaranteed to lose votes at the next election. The NDP was a bit of a rising star, so I'm perplexed that Taliban Jack was so desperate to keep Harper out of power. Harper's tenure as PM is the reason that the NDP got such a strong showing, with all the nation's good progressives mobilized to help Jack keep Stephen "W." Harper in check. Now he's got a situation where a group of his supporters will go away in some nonzero number, and nowhere to bring new ones in since he allied with the Liberals.

I hear Liz May has endorsed the coalition. Is she on airplane glue too? Did Parliament Hill's plumbing systemtake the plume part too seriously? Opposing this coalition by saying that its too close to the election and that disrupting Parliament over this silly issue is too crass and politically opportunistic (despite her belief Harper is a bad but democratically elected leader) is her best chance to increase the stature for her own party. Remember that x+y block of voters? Well I guess they have no reason to angrily defect to the Greens, do they? Looks like they will be staying home.

RallyForCanada.ca is a new website planning a massive rally against the Coalition power-grab on Saturday. In Edmonton it will punk Linda Duncan's office: exactly what I've been wanting to do since October 15th! (I myself will likely not go, as I'm too Albertan to 'rally for Canada') Meanwhile the NDPers are planning a protest [leftists? protesting? You could knock me over with a feather right now! -ed] Saturday evening at Winston Churchill Square. With the pro-Harper rally at noon, and the anti-Harper rally at 6pm, the former could decide to go march against the latter. It's official: we've become Thailand.

Western alienation cannot be underestimated at this point: callers to Rutherford were outraged earlier today. Approximately 20% of my own company's workforce is planning to be at that Saturday rally, and half of them spent more time today asking me about Albertan Independence than actually working (sorry boss!) The same guys who just weeks earlier were asking if I felt like a traitor to Canada for my beliefs were today hoping that Ed Stelmach cut off the oil pipes back east and declared Alberta to be a separate entity by lunchtime tomorrow. Tying back to the x+y bit, it sure doesn't seem like the "coup" is engendering a lot of support. Except the hardcore partisans, who would declare Bush "greatest President ever" if Jack Layton took him on as a senior advisor.

To reiterate: The coup is opposed by huge numbers of Canadians, including NDP and Liberal voters. The coup is supported only by NDP and Liberal voters. As somebody at the National Post said, this arrangement gives the keys to 24 Sussex to Stephane Dion for a single Christmas. Besides that short-term benefit to the party, and the long-term detriment to the country, what on earth is gained? This is a dumb move, and hopefully by December 8th even the Liberals and Dippers have figured this out.† Okay technically its a constitutional convention crisis, as the actual Constitution Act doesn't bother to mention what to do when the Prime Minister loses the support of the House: partly because it doesn't mention the phrase "Prime Minister" at all.

2008-11-29

Japanese companies are trying to convince workers to go forth and multiply in a country where by 2050 a third of the population will have died out:

A recent survey of married couples under 50 found that more than a third had not had sex in the previous month.

Many couples said they didn't have the energy for sex, while others said they found it boring.

Japan's birth rate, at 1.34 - the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime - is among the lowest in the world and falls well short of the 2.07 children needed to keep the population stable.

If the rate persists, demographers warn that Japan's overall population will drop to 95 million by 2050 from its 2006 peak of 127.7 million.

2008-11-28

I have it on good authority that over this past week a large number of U.S. banks have been quietly lowering the credit limit on people's cards. While its true that there are other reasons banks do this, its pretty obvious that McCain's $700 billion stimulus didn't work. Of course, Obama said it wouldn't, not until it was bolstered by his $800 billion stimulus in January. Palin may have stopped the Bridge to Nowhere, but Obama is still trying to sell it to you.

What it is, however, is another sign of the upcoming global market disaster. So far no word about Canadian credit card holders having their limits suddenly dropped, but don't be surprised.

2008-11-27

A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the attacks but little is known of it.

The men were of South Asian appearance and reportedly spoke Hindi, indicating they originated in India.

Attacks over recent years have seen a variety of different groups named, particularly the Indian Mujahideen who had apparently threatened to attack Mumbai in September, claiming that Muslims had been harassed.

For the second time in a week, an Indian navy frigate assigned to protect shipping in the Gulf of Aden has clashed with pirates operating out of Somalia.

Reports from New Delhi say the frigate Tabar -- a modern semi-stealth warship -- which is serving with a nine-country international naval task force, destroyed a heavily armed pirate mothership with its machineguns after coming under fire from it on Tuesday evening. It is believed the pirate crew escaped in two speedboats.

(I say this even with the recent news that one of the attacked motherships claims to be a fishing trawler, though no way to say for sure if it wasn't in fact both)

After all, this story turned out to have a lot to do with this story (which happened to feature the same region).

2008-11-26

This afternoon on CBC Radioactive they were discussing the hockey team that the station is trying to field. They mentioned their goaltender and a couple guys who were playing left-wing, and then actually said

2008-11-23

Remember the year 2001? I have been thinking about it a lot the last hour or so: it was the year that a horrible act of barbarism celebrated in the culturally backward parts of the world took place that upset the balance of our lives and proved that evil still existed in the world.

On the bright side, Montreal lost. At our Grey Cup party today (I had 15 kinds of beer and homemade nachos: which is 11 more kinds of beer than you could get if you were at Boston Pizza) I spent a lot of time screaming at the T.V.

What's with the big ugly white "Queerbec" sign?

Somebody stop him! Christ, I haven't seen anybody have that much trouble defeating a Frenchman on the field of battle since...well, ever!

I still wish Edmonton had won last week: a Battle of Alberta would not only have been cool to see in the Grey Cup, but it would have been a chance for Alberta taxpayers to get back some of our money from that stupid fucking Olympic Stadium that we're still paying for.

A Battle of Alberta one year after the Battle of the Prairies would have really been cool.

Okay seriously these uniforms look too much alike. I thought for sure that was a touchdown, not an interception.

How in the name of retarded shit was that not an illegal takedown?

For the last time Calgary, finish your goddamned tackles!

If Calgary wins this game, I'm doing shots.

No no, I said if Montreal wins I'll do shots. I don't need to drink until I forget about this game anymore!

2008-11-22

Well, we didn't get the Battle of Alberta that had been hoped for. Thanks a fucking lot, you useless dork Macochia.

Anyways, we end up getting the Calgary Stampeders vs. the Montreal Allouettes. Your humble correspondant will be hosting a house party for the big game, which features Alberta (yay!) versus Quebec (boo!).

On the other hand, Sarah Palin is a threat to one-Obama governance. She's her own rising star, and a threat to the Democrats in 2012: if not as a presidential candidate at least another run at Veep. Ergo, she has to be taken down as many pegs as the media can possibly manage.

We've made every effort to sanitize the video of what happens next, but you still might want to consider getting the kids out of the room right now and anyone who's a little squeamish about where Thanksgiving dinner comes from. Are they gone? Okay, here's what happened next: As Governor Palin stepped outside of the hatchery, to give a post-pardon interview, she neglected to notice what was happening directly behind her -- in clear view of the television cameras. We've blurred out the goriest parts, but here's her interview, from start to finish.

Afterward, Shuster asserted:

And you thought her media outings as a vice presidential candidate were as bad as it gets.

A $2,000,000 report by the economically-distressed province of Ontario was released last week, and it covers the 2007 stabbing death of black high school student Jordan Manners.

The authors identified racism as a major problem.

"We were taken aback by the extent to which racism is alive and well and wreaking its deeply harmful effects on Ontarians and on the very fabric of this province," wrote McMurtry and Curling.

"This racism affects all racialized groups in Ontario ... in particular blacks (continue to) suffer from a seemingly more entrenched and often more virulent form of racism."

Youth who feel alienated, oppressed -- and who have no sense of hope -- are more likely to engage in violence, they said.

The report -- which made 30 recommendations -- also focused on other issues the authors said the province must address to reduce violence, including an emphasis on providing easier access to and better mental health services.

The authors said the province must invest about $200 million to provide universal mental health services, noting that the money should be spent even as the government runs into deficit budgets.

"Our report is a road map to government and others who must join us on this journey. Now is the time to take the first steps," said McMurtry at a news conference.

The authors also noted the irony of the criminal justice system.

"Paradoxically, a young person's 'last chance for rehabilitation' is often the criminal justice system, which is ill-equipped to deal with the youth's mental health problems," said the report.

Toronto Mayor David Miller added that society must ensure that entire groups of young people feel don't feel excluded.

"You put a gun in the hands of somebody who is angry, who feels alienated, who feels discriminated against, and that is impulsive, you're creating an incredible risk for society," Miller said.

McGuinty said he will consider the report's recommendations "very carefully" and will look at it as a blueprint for an action plan.

"We can't just write off groups of kids just because they are troubled and troublesome," he said.

He also called on parents to become more engaged in their children's lives.

The report also calls for:

* Ontario to press the federal government to impose a handgun ban (about 30 per cent of handguns used in Toronto crimes originated with legitimate owners) * expand availability of public space and facilities for recreation activities * improve parenting skills and "community-based" support system for parents * keep crime statistics based on race

Well for a change of pace I will hold off on criticizing some of the more outlandish charges for now.

A 16-year old boy was killed, and this report makes it clear that racism is the cause. Jordon Manners was stabbed by two individuals, who have been apprehended. So are they neo-Nazi skinheads? Transplanted rednecked Alberta cowboys?

Er, no.Here are the killers (faces obscured because they are under-age). Well what do you know: they're black too! So when two black kids stab another black kid, its a sign of racism?

Actually this brings up a pretty important point: when whitewashed (pun intended) government reports give politically-correct excuses for violent acts, and when a bunch of expensive and ultimately unproductive government programs are recommended in response, the end result is that more stabbings will take clase. And the Jacey Pinnock case in Edmonton and the Jordan Manners case in Ontario make it clear: the end result of crying "racism" is the death of more black kids. Proof? Jordon Manner's own cousin was arrested for murder less than six months later.

2008-11-19

Chinese Democracy, the new album by Guns N' Roses, is being released next week. Back when the album was announced, a new Democratic President gave people around the world hope and excitement that America would slowly descend into mediocrity allowing their own second rate nations to soar, oil prices had been in a steady decline, and ER was the top television show.

Well, okay, something's changed in 14 years. You get the picture though. Fourteen years, $13 million, and about 15 band member changes later, Chinese Democracy is here.

Well, the rock album, I mean. Not actual democracy in China. But for a while it was an open question which would happen first.

if its illegal for a 45-year-old accountant with an internet account to be talking naughty to 13-year-old girls, how on earth can it be legal for a 51-year-old police investigator to be online pretending to be the 13-year-old girl. Entrapment laws aside, in the end aren't you busting him for talking dirty to little kids? If he doesn't know that the "little kid" isn't a little kid, would it not be a fairly reasonable defense that he wasn't talking dirty to little kids, but rather talking dirty to other dirty old men who were impersonating little kids? In other words, that he was assuming that there are no 13-year-old girls asking for more pictures of his testicles, but rather even more perverse 51-year-old accountants [or hell, even perverse police investigators! -ed] with cross-dressing and roleplay fantasies. Typically these dirty old men pretend to be young people themselves not when the digital pictures get taken, [I assume -ed], so I don't think it would be too unreasonable to use the "I knew the person I'm talking to is actually an adult who's pretending" defense. After all, the defendant would have been pretending already!In reality if any of these child molesters who agree to meet the person they're chatting with, and then get busted in a police sting, the first thing they should blurt out when the SWAT team is tasering him (or, if not in Edmonton, the first thing he says when peacefully cuffed by an officer who isn't jacked up on cocaine) is "when do I get to meet the guy I chatted with? Is he hot?"

When asked why not, Levigne related two examples of how things are sometimes not the same as advertised and people are not exactly who and what they say they are.

The thing to note is that Levigne was right! Even if he did believe it was a 13-year-old-boy, it wasn't. It would be awfully hard to make that charge stick: it would be like being tried in court for the murder of Yahoo! founder George Osbourne while Osbourne himself sat in the benches watching the case. Actus reus: the act must be committed. If there was an actual 13 year old boy chatting on the computer under the observation of an EPS officer a case could be made: but as it is, Levigne isn't guilty because the Crown cannot prove that he was talking to a 13-year-old.

Update, July 15 2010: The Supreme Court has inexplicably upheld the conviction. Its interesting to note how many people observe what Third Edge of the Sword told you four years ago: Levigne never chatted with a 13-year old boy. Yet the Supremes, with a clear cut case of being able to strike down a horribly unwieldy Section 172.1, upheld it. Levigne never took the steps a reasonable person would have taken to determine the age of his chat partner: that's the only way that the top court looked at it, ignoring the fact that if Levigne was psychic and could telepathically determine the exact person he was chatting with, he would have found an Edmonton Police Services officer.

My question remains: how big of a pervert is this cop? I know Edmonton Police aren't known for their adherence to the law or their fine moral standing, but what I want to know is how often did this guy masterbate at night thinking of Michell Levigne's sexually explicit photos?

Regardless of the figure, ever since the U.S. election Canadian pundantry has been belly-aching about our recent record low voter turnout, wondering if we could use a dynamic young leader to shake things up. [sorry Justin Trudeau, they also implied he can't be a white guy -ed] So everybody got that? The U.S.'s 61.2% is awesome, and our measely turnout is pathetic.

Hey, waitaminute here. That's only a 2% difference. Remember that the Bush-Kerry vote was only 60.1%, and that didn't go through any soul-searching with the Yanks about low turnout. (Well, technically yes, several lefties bemoaned that more people didn't go out to vote... for Kerry)

Can we officially ix-nay this whole discussion about voter turnout? Especially since voting in Canada costs you tax money: $1.95 goes to the party that you voted for. If you don't like any of them, voting would benefit a party you don't support.

Well the media, as you might guess, would never settle for merely putting their second rate candidate into the not-so-White-anymore House.

So here's what's going to happen: over the next several months (let the media's trashing of McCain dim in people's eyes) you'll start seeing all of these positive articles about the hardworking dedicated patriot named John McCain who would have made an excellent President. It will start slowly, and built to a virtual train wreck of "what a shame that McCain couldn't have won in 2000 and led America to sixteen glorious years of McCain/Obama enlightened government" op-eds. Why? Because John McCain is harmless now. No worries lifting him up when he's never going to get the nomination ever again.

On the other hand, Sarah Palin is a threat to one-Obama governance. She's her own rising star, and a threat to the Democrats in 2012: if not as a presidential candidate at least another run at Veep. Ergo, she has to be taken down as many pegs as the media can possibly manage.

2008-11-06

Today was the unveiling of Obama's transitional website. Obama.org? ShareJoesWealth.com? No no, naturally it HAS to be change.gov. But whats this? A section called "America serves"? Is Obama finally showing his support for the military?

No, silly me, that would be wise and forward thinking and therefore totally out of character.

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

Holy hell!

I literally have trouble deciding where to begin. As others have noted, colleges are about to increase their tuition by $4000 per year: thats how much students will get from the government in return for their 100 hours of community service.

Meanwhile high school students will be...required to perform 50 hours community service? The infamous Camrose cat-killers who sparked massive protests also received community service: 100 hours. So the punishment for having to live under Chairman Barack is only half that of torturing cats? (Well, okay, that seems fair at least). Connie Viveiros, the Edmonton banker who was a gambling addict, also received 100 hours

A Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools... so he promised them more money and is now poised to deliver... some schlub who's only there to fulfill his Obama time?

No no, what really catches my eye with the 50 hours of community service is that it seems the first step to Obama's revitalization of Hitler Youth. Schoolkids being put to work in the name of Obama (should we just start writing it as "President Obama (pbuh)" and get it over with? (There's a reason this blog post title is a messy German translation of "Change you can believe in)

2008-11-05

This afternoon I had an IM exchange with a friend of mine who worked on her local Obama campaign team. She was very happy that her candidate won the election, and really didn't like my response:

FACLC:Yeah thanks a lot to all of you for fucking my country overFriend: What do u mean?FACLC: Alberta has lots of lumber and beef and oil that have been to date sold under the wise reign of President Bush and the world's largest trade agreementFriend: How do you know that will change? Besides, we need to take care of ours first

From this, two overriding facts emerge from the discussion:

How do I know that it will change? Because Obama stated numerous times he plans to "tear up NAFTA". Wait, are you saying when he pledged to remove the US from the North American Free Trade Agreement that it was change we shouldn't believe in?

Er, wasn't "rampant unilateralism" one of the evils of George W. Bush's administration? Wasn't Obama supposed to be reaching a world consensus and repairing America's relationship with various foreign countries? Isn't Obama his (foreign citizen) brother's keeper? How can any of these promises jive with this Obama staffer's declaration that "America needs to take care of Americans, to hell with the citizens in other parts of the planet?" No, don't tell me, let me guess: more "change we shouldn't believe in".

2008-11-02

But how on earth did the media swallow hook line and sinker this stinker of a line?

Leo Broderick, from Charlottetown, says it looked like an atomic bomb had wiped out all the vegetation around the oilsands mines and he can't believe that Canadians have allowed this to happen.

First off Leo from Charlottetown, the oilsands don't belong to Canada, they belong to Albertans. Secondly, what vegetation are you talking about? The tarsands in large sections look awfully similar to Saudi Arabia before we pump a single barrel of crude from the ground: the constant slow release of bitumen over the millenia has already left the area a virtual wasteland. What happened to Leo's vegetation? It never existed. Sorry Leo, you haven't scored any points with that one.

The second overall pick in the 2002 draft, Upton solidified his status as one of baseball's bright young stars last year. The converted shortstop hit .300 with 24 homers and 82 RBIs but Tampa Bay went 66-96 and finished last in the division.

Before this season, Tampa Bay dropped the word 'Devil' from its nickname.

"I used to tell people I played for the Devil Rays and they'd ask, 'Who are the Devil Rays?' Now I think they know who we are," Upton said.

What? How can Florida fans either not know the name of the baseball team in Tampa Bay or else not remember what they were called just last year? Yikes.

Anyways, Tampa v. Philadelphia... should be amazin'. And by amazin', I mean "any minute now we'll get 400 articles from the MSM about how it is a shame that "small market teams" [doesn't Philadelphia have 6 million people or something? -ed] are facing off instead of another Yankees-Mets series, or Chicago-Angels.

Now its time for the conservative denizens of Edmonton-Strathcona to start making Duncan live up to her self-proclaimed "voice of the underdog" status:

"This is a victory for all kinds of people who want a voice for change and a voice for different perspectives on where we should be going in Canada," said Duncan, a veteran environmental lawyer.

Well Linda, its time to test that theory. Voters in her riding should instantly start organizing a letter-writing campaign. Get a few hundred Conservative voters and church groups and libertarians together to start making some demands on the rookie MP. For instance...

Alberta Separation is a change, in fact the biggest change to hit Canada since Trudeau was elected. No, scratch that, the biggest change since B.C. was added to Confederation in 1871. Duncan should show some support for such a glorious change.

There is currently not a single federal party devoted to private healthcare. Those people with such a "different perspective" have been ostracized, shunned, and ignored. Voters should demand that Duncan end that injustice.

Sodomite Marriage is supported by various European backwaters, a dangerous U.S. Presidential Candidate, and all the major parties. It is opposed by principled religious opposition in the Third World, a constituency that Duncan and her ilk claim to be acting on the behalf of in this country. Therefore, its time that Edmonton took a bold and moral stance against the tide of faggotry worldwide. Will Duncan take her bold leadership role?

Hell, since she's already gone and put one Muslim immigrant out of a job, will she back stronger rights for employers and insuring that principled opposition to "protected groups" is now a legitimate rationale for termination?

This is just the beginning! Any other suggestions should be made in the comments.

2008-10-12

Last night at the Walkabout Pub on Whyte Avenue, I partook in a little Ostrich Burger. I have to say I was more than a little shocked. After all, I was sort of in the mood for a chicken burger. But if you click the link, you'll see that Ostrich meat is in fact very similar to beef.

Whoa there, hold the phone! That doesn't make any sense.

Wikipedia assures me that the Ostrich is a bird of the family Struthionidae. If you want to go a little farther back you can go to its zoological class, which is Aves. Aves are birds. Also a member of the bird class is the humble Gallus gallus, commonly known as... wait for it... chicken!

Beef is Bos taurus, a member of the Bovidae family and of class Mammalia. They don't link up with Ostriches until Phylum level. So why the hell isn't Ostrich meat more like chicken?

This concerns me because I've always been curious as to what Dolphin meat tastes like. Now dolphins are also of the class Mammalia, but I've heard tell that they taste more like seafood than like salty beef, which was always my dolphin-eating fantasy.

The photos on this page certainly make it seem like dolphin meat can be a straight-up substitution for bifsteak, but with the ostrich thing I'm now a little wary.

2008-10-11

The recent Mark Steyn ruling by the BC Inhuman Rights Tribunal has sent famed liberal blogger Dr. Dawg rabidly foaming at the mouth because, as he and almost everyone else predicted, the Tribunal just happened to acquit Steyn and Canada's oldest newspaper.

Well Dawg now insists that the right-wing blogosphere was in error, and laughs at how the fantasies of a totalitarian speech-restricting government agency turns out not to pass. Of this, two things may be noted: firstly, as I'm sure Dawg has read before the issue is not that the government might not prosecute a specific person is irrelevent to the fact that they still find the need to investigate said person. Defending yourself, even when you're innocent, is a long and costly and arduous process. By Dawg's logic we can even eliminate the category of "wrongful arrest", as in the end only the guilty will be convicted after a harmless little trial just to establish the facts.

The second thing was noted in my comment to his blogpost:

And just so, the mob of sadistic kangaroos at the BC Human Rights Tribunal have failed to deliver the sweet lash of tyranny. They refused to hop all over our basic rights and freedoms with their big hind feet

Great news! So are you going to call Doug Collins and let him know he can get back to writing newspaper columns about Spielburg movies, and should be getting his money refunded?

Will Guy Earle get to go on with telling lousy jokes and not have to attend any hearings?

So far the comment has gone uninjured, posssibly because the claim was already made by Dawg that "the guilty hate speech" and "the guilty not hate speech" is clearly defined, with Doug Collins and Stephen Boisson in the former with Steyn in the latter.

For unfamiliar readers, Doug Collins writes articles about how Jew-run Hollywood promote a Jewish agenda. Seeing how the liberals in Hollywood are clearly setting a liberal agenda [pace Steyn, the only movie so far showing American forces decidedly defeating terrorists is Team America: World Police -ed], this claim may spook people but Collins makes his case. He's wrong, of course, but he makes his case.

One of the things Collins has said (and specifically was prosecuted for) was that the Holocaust was exaggerated roughly tenfold. Well, with last night's Dawg comment bouncing in my brain, imagine my surprise when watching my Star Trek: The Next Generation DVDs I come across more Hollywood math. The episode Remember Me, penned by (it should be noted non-Jewish) Lee Sheldon, features the lovely Dr. Crusher trapped in an alternate universe where everybody except for her starts disappearing. Near the climax of the episode, she's left alone on the Enterprise whilst the universe starts closing around her: at one point the computer establishes that the universe is 705 metres in diameter. Later, the universe contracts further, taking the starship with it.

Cut away to the real Enterprise, where they are tracking the pseudo-universe. LaForge comments that the warp bubble is "contracting at a rate of fifteen metres per second: we're going to lose it in about four minutes". Of course, the trouble is that with 60 seconds in a minute, the warp bubble is contracting 900 metres per minute, requiring at least a 3600m bubble in the first place. But the warp bubble turns out to be Dr. Crusher's universe, and moments earlier she had that same four minutes long after the 705m bubble started to contract. An actual bubble of, say, 700 metres taking four minutes to collapse would contact at less than 3 m/s. Its a small victory for Collins, but Hollywood has gotten its numbers wrong before...

2008-10-03

So last night was the much-hyped evening featuring the Palin-Biden debate (shock headline of the day: pro-Obama mainstream media conducts polls showing Biden won the debate) and the English-language leaders debate (though describing a debate including Stephane Dion as such might be a bit unreasonable).

2008-10-01

In these days of market uncertainty and "catestrophic" decreases in the Dow Jones (not as catestrophic as 1987, but certain to spell certain doom far beyond what happened after 1987 even though 1987 was promised the same doom we are promised today), its important to find strong market players.

I am not a financial analyst, but I can say that a portfolio strong on these particular manufactuers will do very well for at least the next 10 months.

Now here's the lesson this post title alludes to. When you are running a major political party's warroom, and you are told that rumour has it an opposing party is guilty of something, you do two things.

Pick a team of people to verify if its true and seek out additional examples of the enemy doing wrong.

Pick another team of people to seek out examples of your own party doing the same wrong.

If team #1 reports back positive and #2 reports back negative than you let the accusations fly as Bob Rae did earlier this week. If team #1 reports negative (and especially if team #2 finds positive) you quietly forget you ever heard a rumour (and defend the opposing party in the press while you're at it since you know its not true). However, if you find yourself in the Liberals' shoes, where both team #1 and team #2 report back positive, you sit on the story and keep it in reserve in case the opposing party decides to make a stink on the issue.

2008-09-29

Okay, with the revelation that several NDPers, including Jack himself, are awfully chummy with the "I'm not an anti-Semite but the goddamned dirty Jews caused 9/11" crowd, I couldn't resist the above headline. In researching the last post I came across this page on the CanWest site.

Now tell me it doesn't actually look like the NDP site, and the Dippers are just including a snippet from a canada.com newspaper article? (click for full-sized):

2008-09-26

Jack Layton, as per usual, was going around earlier this week sounding like an idiot:

The New Democrat leader told reporters outside a Petro-Canada gas station here, where a litre of regular goes for $1.35, that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has failed Canadians by refusing to create a separate consumer protection branch.

Er, gas in B.C. is high because of Gordon Campbell's efforts to fight "global warming". If Jack Layton really wants gas prices in B.C. to drop, all he has to do is outlaw any silly carbon plans; from cap-and-trade to carbon tax, if none of them can be enacted by provincial governments then gas won't be so expensive in Lotusland. Of course, I'm sure Layton and his cronies would be the first to accuse Harper of being a control freak by advocating the feds coming in and taking away provincial responsibilities.

Anyways, it was about this time that Layton really started going off the deep end.

"Campbell slapped on his carbon tax and hurt families here in B.C. Bay Street Harper let it happen. He says he's against it now, but his Bay Street ministers sing a different tune," the NDPer said.

Jack Layton needs to brush up on his geography. Or else be better in the sack so his wife isn't adultering on him with some Conservative Party staffer. Because Bay Street is in downtown Toronto. The Conservatives don't have any MPs in Toronto, let alone ministers. In fact, Bay Street is in the riding of Trinity-Spadina (which Wikipedia describes as "the most left-leaning in Toronto and has voted NDP provincially for a number of years").

Who's the MP for Trinity-Spadina? Why if it isn't Olivia Chow, Jack Layton's wife. Is she the "Bay Street ministers" advising Harper?

You'd better stop campaigning Jack and go give her a good poke before she ends up moving to Jasper and running for the Tories in Yellowhead!

2008-09-24

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, a longtime Chicago Cubs fan and Wrigley field attendee, has just penned a tribute song to the Cubs just in time for their big playoff push in what has to be their most hopeful season since 1989 (strong pushes exist for highly ranking the 1998 and 2003 seasons, the latter of which saw me in the stands around this time five years ago, but the 1989 season was the last one with this much promise (and the .574 winning percentage). May 2008 end without a 1-4 drubbing in the NLCS like that fateful year. Before '89 and '84 you have to go all the way back to '72 for even a second place showing (and back to the infamous goat-series in '45 before another first place showing). This is a club that's waited 99 years and counting for a World Series (I once saw a homemade Cubs T-shirt in 2005 that said "86 years is nothing").

Which, as I gleefully pointed out to a big Pearl Jam fan, might just explain all of the angst and mournful moping in Vedder's lyrics/voice. Being a Cubs fan leaves you feeling the need to listen to "Corduroy" with the lights off and a bottle of whiskey in your hand come early October more often than not, and there has to be more than an idle connection.

(This posts' title is an idle connection though, as the Jets hung on for two years longer than Cobain)